Hey! Thank you to everyone who followed and favorited. You guys are amazing and the review I got actually inspired me to keep writing with this story. I love Leinei and have spent so long fine tuning her story(although it is still a little rough around the edges), and Im so happy to share it with you all. Please keep enjoying, I promise things will start picking up soon and get very interesting!
For this chapter, I suggest listening to Friends by Jeff and Casey Lee Williams.
Seventy Two Hours until the Sports Festival
"Are you sure you don't want to take the lunch I made you?" Reina asks as Leinei gets her shoes on. Reina had pulled her sweater tighter around her body as Leinei glared at her over her shoulder, dark circles under her eyes. She put a hand up, smiling. "I'm just asking, I know you like soba."
"I said I was getting lunch at school." She yawns into her hand, shaking her head as she places her other hand on the door knob. "I'll probably be home late, extra lessons. So you can stay out late and do whatever, or whoever, you do."
"Leinei!" Reina yells, startled and horrified by her words, as she walks out the door, slamming it behind her. Izuku stood there, eyes wide and a scared awkward smile plastered on his face. Leinei sighed and scratched the back of her head as they started to head to the stairs.
"I'm guessing you heard that?" she asks.
"I-I heard nothing," he replies as they walk down the stairs to the ground floor. "Are..you okay? You and your sister don't sound very close."
"We have a complicated relationship," Leinei says curtly as they leave the apartment complex grounds and head towards the school. "Have had one for a few years now. I'm a little closer with my brother than her."
"Then why don't you live with him?"
"He..is very work oriented." She words her statement carefully, pulling her bag onto her shoulder a bit higher. "Our guardians let me move in with Reina because she's home more often than my brother is. They figured it was more stable than me living with my brother."
"Your guardians aren't your parents?"
"My parents died when I was six. Car accident, Reina and I were saved, they died on impact and the car went over a cliff," she says, shrugging. "I don't remember much about them, Reina does, talks about them all the time like I'm supposed to care. I mean, I do care, I loved my mom and dad, but I don't even remember what their faces looked like."
"That makes sense," he agrees, nodding. "It's been me and my mom for a long time. I don't remember my dad. He left when I was four or five. But my mom and I are really close! Oh, she also said you could come over tonight, if you wanted. So we could study and maybe work out a strategy for the Sports Festival!"
"That sounds fun, but I have to pass," she tells him, shaking her head. "Extra lessons with Mr. Aizawa again today, plus Reina insists I'm home by a certain time."
"Alright, well if you change your mind, my mom makes really good cookies!"
"I'll keep that in mind," Leinei says with a smile, pulling her sleeves down over her hands and balling the ends in her palms. "Thank you, Izu."
"Of course! We're friends, aren't we?"
"Yeah. We're friends."
She smiled as she affirmed it, scratching her cheek with a fabric covered finger. Her first confirmed friend and how fitting was it that it's the boy next door. Her face was warm and, for the first time in a long time, it didn't hurt to smile.
I like this feeling.
"Again," Aizawa orders, after she rubbed her eyes using the heels of her palms. "You're not going to get anywhere not using your quirk."
She gritted her teeth as she tried not to snap on him. She wanted it so bad, because every time she heard those words, all she could hear were the appointed tutors scolding her and yelling at her. All she could hear was Reina talking to her like she knew what she was going through. Reina was blessed with a perfect quirk; Leinei was cursed.
"I'm trying," she says, forcing her voice to stay calm and soft. That's all she could do was try, but it hurt so much. Each attempt so far was a failure, and the repeated turning on and forcing off of her quirk was painful. Her eyes felt ready to bleed; they'd been at this for two hours and she was exhausted. She wanted to sleep, even for twenty minutes.
"Trying is what gets you killed," Aizawa remarks, using his own eye drops to moisten his eyes after peeling his sleeping bag off. "How did you turn it off before?"
"They usually kept me on suppressants and dampeners," she admits weakly, rubbing her eyes again. "Instead of keeping calm, and being rational, they usually just shot me up with whatever they could get into my system."
"You must've built up a pretty high tolerance for those drugs at this point," he continues, looking down at her showing wrists. She pulls her sleeves down again, looking away as he sighs. "You can't rely on them; that's probably why you got this far without actually learning to control it."
"Gee, you think so mister?" she snarks, before her cheeks turn bright red at his unamused stare. She could feel his eyebrows were raised even under the layers of bandages. "Sorry. I didn't sleep well last night."
"Sleep is necessary for maintaining a strong body and mind," he tells her.
Must be why you walk around with a sleeping bag.
"That's why I walk around with a sleeping bag."
Can he read minds?!
"So, try again," he tells her. "But, I want you to try something that helped me with my quirk. Imagine a door, focus on the door. When you want to turn it on, open the door. Close it when you want to turn it off."
"Easier said than done," she mutters, sighing and rubbing the back of her head. Aizawa nods as she sits down, her legs having started to shake under her weight. "Is it alright if we take a break? My eyes could use it."
"It's fine with me," he agrees. "Take five and go get something to drink."
"Yes sir," she says, but doesn't get up right away, letting her anxiety bleed away from the coil in her stomach before she pushes herself up and walks out of the gym to the hallway. She found one of the vending machines nearby and looked over the options, rubbing the back of her head.
"Juice is usually my go to after training," a familiar voice remarks, making her jump and turn quickly, almost hitting the vending machine in her faint panic. Shoto stood there, studying the vending machine next to hers. "But they seem to be out at the moment."
"Ri-right," she says, her voice cracking as she turns back to the front of her vending machine and decides on a carton of chocolate milk. She hits the buttons as Shoto stands there, her entire body tense as she finds something else to say. Anything else. Something, anything, there has to be something.
"So...do you like soba?" she offers, immediately regretting the words coming out of her mouth as she resisted the urge to slam her head through the glass of the machine. Shoto glanced up as he decided on a simple water bottle.
"I prefer cold soba, but yes," he replies, punching the numbers in and bending down to pick it up out of the drawer. "I'm guessing you like it?"
"Actually yes. I'm a fan of cold soba too," she laughs, feeling even more awkward than before as he stands up and opens the bottle. She bent down to grab her own bottle of milk, letting out a soft sigh as she opened it. They never were really close, but even as children, they were able to talk easier than this.
What happened to you, Shochan?
"I need to get back to my training," he told her, causing her to jump again. He finished his water and threw it into the recycling bin. "Nice talking to you, Salinsa."
"Ye-yeah, you too, Todoroki.." she mumbles, looking down at her feet as he walks off. She had an easier time talking to Bakugo than she did him now. We never were very close growing up...Maybe I shouldn't be surprised he doesn't recognize me.
She finished her chocolate milk and threw the bottle into the same bin, sighing softly as she worked the nerve up to walk back into that gym. She didn't even know if her five minutes were up, but was sure Aizawa would walk out and tell her if they were.
What if I didn't walk back into that gym? Would I be booted from the school? Would I lose the few friends I finally made? Or would he give me a pass, commend me for working so hard and let me run off to go play normal for a few more hours?
She highly doubted he'd do the latter, so she took a deep breath, rolled her shoulders back and looked up. Of course, the first thing she saw on the wall was an All Might poster, his motto of I AM HERE emblazoned across it. Normally, a student seeing that would be elated, excited, would repeat it with as much gusto as they could and carry on with their day a little higher on cloud nine. But to her, it wasn't something calming, but an irritant.
"Salinsa, your time is up," Aizawa calls, jolting her out of her thoughts.
"Coming!" she replies, shaking her head to clear those nasty thoughts of the symbol of peace away. She had to focus on getting even a semblance of control over her quirk, before she could sit there and judge the way he did his job.
But the thought lingered: if he was the symbol of peace, why did we have to suffer?
Sixty Seven Hours until the Sports Festival
Lunch couldn't come fast enough. Her eyes were sore, her head throbbed, and Aizawa was laid out on the floor snoring as she walked out with the lunch bell. She went over to a water fountain and wet her hand a bit to rub some moisture back into them, while making the mental note to bring her eye drops tomorrow. Her stomach growled a bit, and she took that as a good sign that she's actually getting somewhere with training.
"The door idea he gave me helps," she murmurs to herself, zoning out a bit as she walks towards the cafeteria. A few students stared at her as if she were insane, and perhaps she was. But that's why she's medicated. "If I can just get the hang of forcing the door shut, I should be able to-"
Her spoken musings were cut short when someone wrapped their arm around her neck. Well, two someones.
"Salinsa, we missed you!" Kaminari whined as he and Kirishima walked with her to the cafeteria. "You should come back to the classroom after lunch with us!"
"Yeah, Sero came up with this super manly idea for the festival," Kirishima adds on as they enter the room and stand in the line behind Bakugo and Sero themselves. He unhooked his arm from Leinei's neck. "You in?"
"I'd just hold you guys back," she replies, shaking her head as she eased Kaminari's arm off her. "Also next time, please at least give a warning before grabbing me?"
"Oh yeah, that probably wasn't manly at all," Kirishima apologizes before bowing. "I'm so sorry!"
"N-No, it's fine," she says quickly, her face flushing as he stands up. "I probably gave the indication I heard you guys or something, it's fine, I just wasn't expecting it."
"Ohh?" Kaminari sits his chin between his thumb and index finger as he looks her over, leaning forward. "Is it because you already have a boyfriend?"
Why does everyone assume that?
"I-I don't have-"
"She did walk to school with Midoriya today," Kirishima says aloud, as Uraraka was walking by. The brown haired girl stiffened hearing this, but kept walking. The girl's jealousy was almost as palpable as her denial, making Leinei flinch and cringe feeling it. "Is there something going on between you two? We won't tell anyone!"
"You did kinda just announce it to the entire lunchroom," Sero says as they follow the line.
"There's nothing going on between Izu and I," she tells them, feeling oddly defensive as her face turns bright pink. "We live next to each other, and he happened to see me walking out of my sister's apartment today. We're just friends."
"So does that mean you'll give me a shot?" Kaminari continues, grinning wider. "The spark between us is just so….sparky."
"You really need to work on your pick up lines," Sero laughs as Kirishima pats his shoulder. Leinei sighed with a gentle smile.
"Sorry, Kaminari, I'm not really looking for anything like that right now," she tells him. "But I'll settle for being friends."
"I can take being friends," he agrees, his smile never faltering. "Now I can tell people I have a girl friend!"
"Dumbass," Bakugo scoffs, finally speaking up as they get to the front. "Watch who you say that shit to."
"Aw you're just jealous Salinsa wants to be my friend and not yours," he retorts, sticking his tongue out after. Bakugo shrugs as he gets a tray, the others following suit. Leinei says nothing to this as she brings up the rear, listening to Kaminari and Kirishima chatter away. She grabbed random items to place on her tray, not really paying attention as she continued to think on her quirk.
"Watch where you're going, Short Stack!"
She looked up just in time to see she was about to walk into Bakugo's back. The others had gone ahead it seemed, the two of them walking together. Her face burned a bit as she pulled the tray closer to her body, his crimson eyes glaring down at her before he grumbled under his breath and walked off. She was left there, standing and staring like a dummy that almost ran into a classmate.
I'm so stupid! I should have been paying attention, I shouldn't have zoned-
"Short Stack, are you coming or what?"
She flinched, seeing Bakugo a few feet ahead by the table everyone else was sitting at. Her face turned up another ten degrees as she hurried over, sitting between Kirishima and Sero, Bakugo sitting in front of Kirishima without another word. Kaminari was chattering away, talking enough for each person at the table with them.
"Oh, Salinsa! How's your training with Aizawa going?" Kirishima says, getting Kaminari to quiet down for a few while in anticipation for her answer. "You look exhausted."
"I haven't used my quirk so much in a long time," she admits, pushing some of her food around the plate. "But I think I'm getting better. I should be able to keep up with everyone soon."
"That's awesome!" Sero says, grinning. "I can't wait to see what it does in action!"
"I bet she'll drop a hundred people, easy," Kaminari gushes, waving his hand in the air as he smiles. "It's always the small cute ones that are the deadliest."
Oh you have no idea.
